Mechanism for duplicators for inserting interleaving sheets between the printed sheets



April 17, 1962 P E BUSSEY MECHANISM FOR DUPLICA'iOliS FOR INSERTING INTERLEAVING 5 Sheets Sheot 1 Filed March 22, 1966" SHEETS BETWEEN THE PRINTED SHEETS INVENTOR Peter Err-Est Buss e j @YmMh I ATTORNEYS Aprll 17, 1962 P. E. BUSSEY 3 02 MECHANISM FOR DUPLICATORS FOR INSERTING INTERLEAVING SHEETS BETWEEN THE PRINTED SHEETS Fzled March 22, 1960 5 Sheets-Sheet 2 INVENTOR ir EH1 es B st-j ATTORNEYS A nl 17, 1962 P. E. BUSSEY 3,029,731

MECHANISM FOR DUPLICATQRS FOR INSERTING INTERLEAVINGV v .sHEETs BETWEEN THE PRINTED SHEETS" Filed March 22, 1960 S'Sheets-Sheet 3 INV EN TOR ATTORNE ZS April 17, 1962 P E BUSSEY 3,029,731

MECHANISM FOR DuPLIcAToR's FOR INSERTING INTERLEAVING Filed March 22, 1960 SHEETS BETWEEN THE PRINTED SHEETS 5 Sheets-Sheet 4 INVENTOR a /'e r 5-): es/ fiar e mm M7126) 94W ATTORNEYS April 17, 1962 P. E. BUSSEY 3,029,731

MECHANISVI FQR DUPLICATORS FOR INSERTING INTERLEAVING SHEETS BETWEEN THE PRINTED SHEETS Filed March 22. 1960 5 Sheets-Sheet 5 INVENTOR e/)- raves/ 52? w gmwvhm ATTORNEYS 3,029,731 MLEQHANESM FOR DUPLICATURS FOR INSERT- ING INTERLEAVING SHEETS BETWEEN THE PRKNTED SHEETS Peter Ernest Bussey, Rosirilde, Denmark, assignor to Zeuthen & Aagaard A/S, Copenhagen, Denmark Filed Mar. 22, 1960, Ser. No. 16,674 (Jlaims priority, application Denmark Mar. 25, 1959 3 Claims. (Cl. 101-419) When prints are produced on duplicators it may happen, particularly when the prints are produced on insufficiently absorbent paper, that an ofiset of a print already produced is left on the back of the succeeding sheet when it leaves the duplicator rollers and is led down onto the stack of finished prints. This drawback may be remedied by interleaving sheets being manually placed between the prints leaving the duplicator, but this can only be done in the case of a slow working-rate, and this method has the further drawback that the interleaving sheets, which usually are waste sheets of different kinds, are to be inserted against the direction in which the printed sheets leave the master cylinder, and this involves the risk of having the stack disarranged. v

A mechanism is known for inserting interleaving pieces of cardboard. This mechanism is placed on the delivery side of the duplicator so as to be located immediately above the part where the sheets from the duplicator are delivered, the so-called receiving tray. By a mechanical coupling to the duplicator a release motion is provided which causes one interleaving piece at a time to drop United States Patent down on the top of the stack of sheets on the receiving i regard to the correct functioning. This means that the interleaving pieces become rather expensive and cannot be used a sufiicient number of times, as in the course of time they get damages. They are also sensitive to storage, being for example, when exposed to moisture, inclined to curve and cause trouble in the mechanism where they may get stuck, so that the advance fails. Further the operation rate is rather low. The known mechanism possesses the advantage, of course, that it is sufiicient to connect it in those cases in which it is necessary, which means roughly about 10% of all cases. The cases, in which the use of interleaving sheets is required, depend on the quality of the paper and the ink used besides the speed at which the work is performed.

Other duplicators are known which are designed in a special way so that at the input side of the duplicator two tables are provided, one above the other, for heets to be printed and interleaving sheets, respectively. Such especially constructed duplicators are comparatively expensive and rather tall of construction, because it is necessary to accomodate a suiiiciently large supply stack, e.'g. a supply stack of 500 sheets. In the known duplicator construction, the sheet to be printed as well as the interleaving sheet pass in between the master cylinder and the pressure roller.

A comparison between the two known solutions to the problem of obtaining a suitable separation of the printed sheets leaving the duplicator shows that separately they have their advantages. The former mechanism is advantageous in that it may be designed as an accessory,

so that only the users needing it need obtain it. Hereby a deviation from the standard design of the duplicator proper is also avoided. The other solution ofiers the 'advantage that thin interleaving sheets, particularly waste sheets, may be used so that it is cheaper. to operate, and

it otters the further possibility of high-speed work with a large supply of interleaving sheets. As it is a case of an especially constructed machine it will, however, be rather expensive, and manyusers will not need a machine of such capacity, so that in fact they pay an exorbitant price for the advantages ofiered by the machine.

It is an object of the present invention to provide a mechanism combining the advantages of the two known solutions but without the drawbacks of the known solutions. The mechanism, which it be desired to provide, should therefore be an accessory mechanism which can be coupled to existing standard duplicators, but which must be capable of working with interleaving sheets of paper, e.g. waste sheets, and a further aim is to avoid the drawback asserting itself in the case of manual insertion of interleaving sheets, viz. that the direction of insertion for the interleaving-sheet is the reverse to the direction in which the printed sheets leave the master cylinder. g Viewed in relation to the known solutions referred to, the present invention relates to a mechanism for duplicators for inserting supple interleaving sheets between the printed sheets leaving the duplicator, the said mechanism comprising a supporting member for a supply stack of interleaving sheets, a feeding member for feeding the interleaving sheets one by one synchronously with the feed of the sheets. to be printed, and guiding members 'for guiding the interleaving sheets to the place where they are to be used. The feature, characteristic of the invention, of this mechanism, is that the mechanism which, as known per se, is arranged for being attached to the delivery side of the duplicator above the receiving tray is provided with guiding members for turning the interleaving sheets initially fed in a direction against the master cylinder so that the side of the interleaving sheets facing upwards'while in the supply stack will face down against the upwards-facing printed side of the printed sheets arriving at the receiving tray, and leading said interleaving sheets out onto the printed sheets in the direction of motion of the latter from the master cylinder towards the receiving tray.

The mechanism according to the invention is an accessory applicable in connection with standard duplicators, so that it is unnecessary to increase the height of said duplicators. The duplicator proper will consequently not be more expensive to manufacture, and the mechanism according to the invention may in a simple way be designed as an extra piece of equipment which can be connected and disconnected as it be required without it being necessary, however, to work with stiff, thick pieces of cardboard. The capacity can therefore be made considerably higher than the capacity of the known mechanrsm.

In an expedient embodiment of the mechanism according to the invention the guiding members comprise a set of feed rollers which are mounted rotatably in a frame and one of which is at least along about half of its circumference and at a short distance from the latter enclosed by a curved guiding plate, while the frame carries a movably accomodated supply table for interleaving sheets, the said supply table being spring-loaded in the direction towards a rotatable shaft which is mounted in the frame and provided with at least one fixed feed cam.

According to the invention it is convenient that coupling mean are provided by which the feed rollers can be coupled to the main shaft of the duplicator and which are so dimensioned that the peripheral velocity of the feed rollers is at least practically speaking the same as theperipheral velocity of the master cylinder. Hereby is achieved that the sheet, leaving the master roller, and

the interleaving sheet move at practically speaking the same velocity, so that a smooth and precise delivery to the receiving tray is achieved.

A particularly simple feed mechanism is according to the invention obtained by the shaft on the driven feed roller being by a gear Wheel transmission coupled to the shaft of the feed cant via a claw clutch with a considerable slipf By this measure, the slow moving feed cam after having a fed a paper sheet to the quickly moving feed rollers will be carried quickly along by the paper, the cam being by its continued rotation released from the surface of the paper sheet and thus does not hinder the feed by the feed rollers.

The invention will in the following be described in more detail with reference to the accompanying drawings Where FIGQl shows a side elevation of part of a duplicator with an embodiment of a mechanism according to the invention coupled to it,

' FIG. 2 shows a horizontal part section in the mechanism in FIG. 1,

FIG. 3 shows a vertical section in another embodiment,

FIG. 4 a plane view with two sections along the lines AL and AR respectively in FIG. 3 and FIG. 5 a side view of the mechanism in FIGS. 3 and 4.

In the drawing, 1 designates the framing of the duplicator and 2 the master cylinder with the back-pressure roller 3. On the shaft of the master cylinder the usual driving pinion 4 is provided which, as will be seen above in FIG. 2, engages a gear wheel 5 which in turn engages a gear wheel 6. The two gear wheels 5 and 6 are extra accessories mounted in the duplicator proper and forming the sole extra parts necessary in the standard duplicator with a view to making the attachment of a mechanism according to the invention possible.

The mechanism according to the invention has a support 16 with side walls, in which is journalled a shaft 11 for a fed roller which in the example shown is tripartite and designated by 12a, 12b, and 120. The feed rollers 12 are contacted by a possibly multipartite back-pressure roller or back-pressure cylinder 13 which is journalled 7 so as to be freely rotatable in the support of the mechalllSlIl.

Fixed to the support of the mechanism is a guiding plate 14 which partly encloses the feed roller 12. The shaft 11 of the feedroller 12 is by a claw clutch 15, 16 connected to the shaft for the gear wheel 6. At its opposite end the shaft 11 is only journal'led in the support 10. Two carrying rods 29 are fastened to the support '10 parallel to the shaft 11 and arranged for being releasably coupled to the framing '1 of the duplicator by means of axially displaceable sleeves 17 with pins 19 which can be inserted into corresponding holes in the framing 1 of the duplicator. The sleeve 17 is provided with an arresting screw 18, and after this screw has been loosened, the sleeve 17 and the shaft 29 can be displaced in relation to each other with a view to the mounting or disconnection of the mechanism.

The shaft 11 carries a gear wheel 20 engaging a gear wheel 21 which is journalled on a shaft 22, but coupled to the latter by means of a claw clutch 23, 24-, the said claw clutch having a considerable slip. The shaft 22 carries feed cams 25 which for example may consist of rubber and have the form shown in FIG. 1 with toothed surfaces. In the support of the mechanism there is by means of ,two screws 26 mounted a supply table 27 for interleaving sheets in such a way that the table is rotatable around the common axis of the screws. A spring mechanism 28 tends to press the movable table 27 upwards in the direction towards the feed earns 25.

When the mechanism is to be applied and is mounted as shown in FIG. 1, a supply of interleaving sheets, e.g.

, 4 claw clutch 15, 16 by the gear wheels 6, 5 and 4. When a sheet in a manner known per se is fed between the master cylinder 2 and its back-pressure roller 3, an interleaving sheet is simultaneously fed from the supply stacl; on the table 27 by means of the cams 25 on the shaft 22 which via the claw clutch 23, 2.4 is turned by the gear wheel 21 engaging the gear wheel 20 fixed on the shaft 11. The cams 25 grip the upper interleaving sheet and feed it between the rollers 12 and 13, and at the moment when the interleaving sheet is gripped by these rollers, the cams 25 are accelerated into a position in which they are clear of the sheet. Due to the considerable slip in the claw clutch 23 the cams 25 are not bound to follow the shaft 22, but are allowed to run somewhat faster than the latter due to their inertia when accelerated by the fast moving sheet. It is thus possible for the earns 25 to let go of the interleaving sheet as soon as they have carried out their mission, viz. to feed it to the feed rollers 12, 13. To facilitate the separation of the uppermost interleaving sheet from the stack, corner separators 32 are provided against which the two front corners of the interleaving sheet located uppermost in the supply stack abut, so that the paper gets slightly curved and the separation is thereby facilitated.

I The interleaving sheetis by the rollers 12 and 13 and the guiding plate 14 guided along a curved path which turns the'interleaving sheet about so that it continues its motion in the direction opposite to that in which it was inserted betwen the rollers 12 and 13.

When the printed sheet from the master cylinder 2 and the back-pressure roller 3 is advanced in the direction indicated by the arrow A, the interleaving sheet is advanced in the direction indicated by the arrow marked B, and both sheets move at almost the samevelocity, when the dimensioning of the feeding mechanism is such that the peripheral velocity of the feed roller 12 is the same as the peripheral velocity of the master cylinder 2 The result is that the two sheets will simultaneously move out above the receiving tray 30 of the duplicator, abut on an end stop 31, and be brought to rest on top of the stack on the receiving tray 30.

in the embodiment shown in FIGS. 3 and 4 there is also a support 10 in which is mounted a shaft 11 for a feed roll 12 and a shaft 30 with counter-pressure rolls 31. Fixed to the support of the mechanism there is furthermore a guiding plate '14 which partly encloses the feed roll 12 and which is provided with slots for the counterpressure rolls 31.

The'shaft 11 carries at one end a cog wheel 32 and at this end the shaft 11 is journalled in a bearing bush 33 which is fixed to the support 10 and which is made in such a way that it serves simultaneously as a bearing 34- for a cog wheel 35 which is prevented from sliding axially on the bearing 34 by a screw 36 and a washer 37. The cog wheel 35 is provided with a circular-cylindrical part 38 from the free front of which projects an axially resilient driving stud 39.

The cylindrical part 38 with the driving stud 39 serves as a coupling member when the mechanism is to be attached to a duplicator which is provided with a corresponding coupling member which as indicated in FIG. 4 only has one single contact surface 40 on the circularcylindrical coupling member 41. By this construction synchronisrn will always exist between the duplicator and the interleaving mechanism provided that the driving coupling member 41 in the duplicator is moved at the same speed as is the shaft of the duplicator handle, or if engine power is used as is the corresponding shaft. Thus it is not necessary to take special precautions when connecting the interleaving mechanism as it automatically will become synchronised with the duplicator without any special adjusting.

The feed members for single feed of the interleaving sheets are small rubber blocks which are mounted resiliently on a carrying member 43 mainly made as an open square ring having in two sides facing each other square apertures into which fits a square shaft 44 with cylindrical end journals which are journalled in bearing bushes 45 in the support 10. In the carrying members 43 are incorporated leaf springs 4-6 which serve to secure the. ad-' justable carrying members 4-3 in a desired position on the shaft 44. On one end of the shaft 44 is fixed a cog wheel 4-7 which gears into the cog wheel 35 and which is provided with the same number of teeth so that the gear ratio is 1:1. Firmly connected with the cog wheel 4-7 is another cog wheel 48 which gears into the cog wheel 32. The gear ratio. between the cog Wheel 48 and the cog wheel 32 is chosen in such a way that the interleaving sheet which is fed by the roll 12 will move at the same speed as will the printed sheet leaving the duplicator.

An interleaving sheet which is fed by the feed roll members 42 moves relativelyslowly until it is caught by the feed roll 12 and the counter-pressure rolls 31. At this moment the speed is increased considerably and as the feed roll members 42 "have not yet at this moment let go of the fed interleaving sheet it is adequate that there is a slip at a suitable place in the mechanism the slip being of a such kind that it does not disturb the synchronism. In the embodiment shown in the FIGS. 3 to 5 this is achieved by the fact that the cog wheel 47 may be turned a small angle compared to the shaft 44 which is provided with a. driving stud 49 which can be moved a certain angle in a sector-shaped slot 50 in the cog wheel 47. V

The table'27 for the supply of interleavingsheets is provided with side members 27a which lie parallel to and which at one end is fixed pivotally to the support and at the other end projects through a slit 56 in the support 10. The slit 56 is provided with adjustment notches so that the lever 55 can be adjusted in at least two positions one in which the spring is stretched and the table 27 is pressed upwards and another in which the spring is slack. In the latter position a supply of interleaving sheets may easily be inserted.

With a view to engagement of the mechanism to the duplicator there are a couple of through carrying rods 29 mounted in the support 10. The ends of these carrying rods which project outside each side member fit into U- shaped canals in the corresponding side members of the duplicator. A clamp screw 57 can be used for clamping the mechanism to the duplicator as the screw is pressed 6 shown in FIGS. 3-5 the gear wheel 48 on the shaft 44 can be driven directly from the duplicator provided that the driving member in said duplicator has the correct rotation direction. In this case the gear wheels and 47 can be dispensed with, so that only'two gear wheels are necessary, ctr. the embodiment in FIGS. 1 and 2.

I claim:

1. In combination with a duplicator having a master cylinder and a delivery side including a receiving tray for printed sheets leaving the duplicator, a detachable mechanism for inserting thin interleaving sheets between the printed sheets and comprising a supporting means, a spring-loaded supply table for interleaving sheets movably mounted on the supporting means, means for coupling said supporting means to the duplicator at the delivery side above the receiving tray, guiding members for guiding the interleaving sheets to their place of application and interposed between the supply table and the master cylinder, said guiding members being disposed vertically substantially above the inlet end of the receiving tray and arranged tor turning the interleaving sheets initially fed in a direction toward the master cylinder through an angle of approximately 180 degrees so the interleaving sheets are finally moved in the direction of the sheets provided with prints and are forcibly fed into the receiving tray for adjacent the inlet end thereof, said guiding members comprising a set of feed rollers journalled in the supporting means and a curved guiding plate enclosing at least about half the circumference-of one of said feed rollers at a short distance from the latter and interposed between the feed roller and the master cylinder, a rotatable shaft mounted in said supporting means and 7 having at least one feed cam fixed on said shaft for gripdrivingly coupling said rotatable shaft to the feed rollers.

onto the side wall of the duplicator perhaps 'into a dent or a hole in this side wall.

2. A mechanism as claimed in claim 1, wherein coupling and transmission means is provided for connecting the feed rollers to'the shaft of the master cylinder and for rotating the feed rollers at a peripheral velocity which References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS H Swindle Aug. 7, 1945 

